Chapter 3
“This is all your fault,” Chrysanthe hissed from behind the bars of her cell. Not for the first time.
“So you’ve said,” Attalus sighed from behind his.
Despite almost three days locked in the bowels of the palace, in the windowless prison known as the Maw, with Chrysanthe reminding them almost hourly that she blamed him for their situation, Attalus just couldn’t fathom why it’d happened at all.
Why had he and a handful of half-siblings been thrown into the Maw? Sure, there was that accusation that one or all of them were part of a conspiracy to poison Araxos. But why would anyone believe it?
Attalus was hardly ever on the islands and had never, ever expressed any desire for power.
He was a healthy, correct amount of terrified by Araxos—but more importantly, bore no grudges against him.
Araxos had only ever conspired against their father; he’d hardly ever even acknowledged that Attalus, Theron, and their mother existed.
Much the same could be said about Phiobos.
The youngest of Diometrios’s brood, he was too young, barely out from under his mother’s wing.
Good-natured and guileless—at least insomuch as their kind could be—Phiobos wasn’t devious nor clever enough to plan something like this.
His mother and her kin, possibly, but they wouldn’t risk such a move with Phiobos still so young and vulnerable.
Better to wait for a few more diadochos to kill each other off before making a move.
There might be a case to be made against Eudora, or at least her mother, but then again, the chances were next to nothing that she’d do anything without her twin.
That Anamache hadn’t been implicated and thrown into the Maw with them was strange to say the least. The only reason Chrysanthe was here with them was because she refused to let Eudora be taken alone.
All things considered, it might’ve been an almost pleasant few days of conversation between siblings had Chrysanthe not been there.
The dragoness paced the cell she shared with Eudora, the latter watching her as she made a linear track in the stone floor. Chrysanthe spent her time alternately railing against Araxos, baselessly blaming Attalus, and concocting evermore elaborate escape plans.
Even Eudora looked ready to murder her sister after three days of this. And the bad food.
Head slumping back against the stone wall of their cell, Attalus grinned humorlessly at Phiobos. “What’re the chances the guards take her back out again if we ask?”
Phiobos snickered, his eyes glittering with humor despite the lines of exhaustion marring his young face.
“This isn’t a joke, Attalus. No one’s sent to the Maw by accident.”
No, they weren’t. They were either fetched eventually for execution or left down there to starve out of sight. He took heart in the fact that they were being fed still; even if their rations could hardly qualify as food.
“I’m not laughing at the Maw or our being in it, sister,” said Attalus. I’m laughing at you. He didn’t have to say the last part aloud, though, Chrysanthe understood.
The dragoness scowled across the dank corridor between their cells.
Her sour look told him she’d happily leave her cell to come into his and strangle him.
What was funny was she probably could. As far as any of them knew, Chrysanthe was free to leave.
She’d certainly entered the cell of her own free will.
“Tch.” Chrysanthe snapped her forked tongue against her fangs. “Leave it to you to resort to poison. The cowardly assassin’s choice.”
“As opposed to the dead assassin’s choice of challenging the anax directly.”
“So you admit, it was you?”
“Of course not.” Attalus rolled his eyes. “If it was me, do you really think I’d be stupid enough to put the poison in wine from a vineyard I own?” He snorted, insulted more by the assumption he’d be that imbecilic rather than that he’d try to kill their older brother.
“Araxos hardly ever drinks wine,” Phiobos said with a shrug. “At least not in front of anyone.”
Attalus nodded, although it intrigued him why Phiobos should have noticed that in the first place.
“Well something almost slipped past,” Chrysanthe fumed. “If I had been appointed agodoros, none of this would—”
“Chryse, if you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll do it for you.” Eudora’s glare was downright dangerous.
The elder dragoness shot her sister a withering glare. “You’re lucky I’m here. What would you do without me?”
“Get a bit of sleep,” muttered Eudora.
Chuckling, Attalus put his arm through the irregular bars, all gone a rusty red with age.
Like with the rest of the palace, the Maw had been molded from rock and dragonfire, with a bit of iron thrown in.
And as with anything forged with dragonfire, once it set, it couldn’t be melted nor even softened again.
At least not outside the heat of a volcano, which even dragon scales failed to withstand.
Resting his elbow on a relatively flat piece of bar, he rolled his wrist nonchalantly.
“All these questions, Chryse. You’d think it was you sent to interrogate us.
” He smiled, revealing his fangs, when Chrysanthe turned her frown back on him.
She’s just too easy. That was the problem with caring about everything—anything bothered you.
“I’m here to ensure nothing happens to Dora.”
“Like what? Do you know something we don’t?” Tilting his head back, Attalus said with a smile, “What’s your mother up to this time, I wonder?”
Chrysanthe threw herself against the bars of her cell. “Don’t you dare insinuate—”
“That your snake of a mother would conspire against the anax and anyone else in her way? Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“You fucking son of a—”
“He’s just riling you up, Chryse. Stop falling for it.” Eudora rolled her own eyes before pinning Attalus with a disapproving pout.
He merely shrugged. How else would they pass the time?
“Your mother truly isn’t behind this?” he asked Eudora.
“Not that I know of, but it’s not like she’d tell us if she was. Not me, anyway.” Eudora squinted up at her elder sister. “Probably not Chryse, either. Pyrrha was the one she liked to conspire with.”
“Don’t speak of Pyr. Not in this place,” Chrysanthe hissed, making Eudora pale.
The rumor was that it’d taken Pyrrha, the eldest of Clymestra’s daughters, much longer than most to finally starve to death down here in the Maw.
It’d been punishment for turning against Diometrios, when Clymestra and her brood had initially supported him against Araxos’s coup.
They’d failed badly in their own plot, and Pyrrha had been the one to pay for it.
Diometrios had been defeated eventually, of course, but not in time to save Pyrrha. Clymestra’s cries when she found the husk that remained of her eldest could be heard far out to sea.
Even Attalus’s mood soured at the mention of Pyrrha. She and one illegitimate brother, Nikodemos, had been casualties in the years’ long struggle for the dais, along with many, many cousins, soldiers, and retainers.
Diometrios had taken as many as he could with him.
The old lizard had been a mean bastard, and while that should’ve united his spawn against him, they were all too terrorized. Huddled within their factions, only his eldest sons had been strong enough to finally defeat him and the challenges that came after his death.
It’d been about a year since the last major attempt to overthrow Araxos. Perhaps they’d all been lulled into a false sense of security.
Attalus wouldn’t have guessed that possible, given how terrified the whole court was from centuries of the mad king, but there were stranger ways of coping.
It was within that sullen, contemplative silence that they heard the echoing clink of talons on stone. All four of them looked down the corridor, watching on as a contingent of gorgoroi marched down the warped corridor, Tychon himself at their head.
Phiobos climbed to his feet, but Attalus didn’t bother until one of the gorgoros stuck the key into the lock of his cell and nearly wrenched his arm out of its socket.
“Up,” barked Tychon.
With a sigh, Attalus stood. His wings twitched agitatedly when two gorgoroi hurried to grab him by the upper arms, but he suppressed his instinct to bat them away. If he was going to fight, he needed more room to maneuver.
Phiobos similarly secured, the two of them were led from their cell—leaving Eudora and Chrysanthe behind.
“Where are you taking them?” called Eudora.
“What about my sister?” Chrysanthe asked at the same time.
Tychon didn’t bother turning around. “Your mother’s still arguing your case. Your time will come soon.”
Well, well. It seemed Clymestra was indeed scheming. He expected no less. With the weight of her clan behind her, no daughter of hers could be accused without a serious fight.
Meanwhile, Phiobos’s clan was far less powerful, and he was illegitimate.
Attalus was princeps but had no clan.
They were the easier prey.
Attalus met Phiobos’s rounded eyes as they turned a corner and were marched to the first of many staircases up to the Pinnacle. There wasn’t any consolation he could give Phiobos other than a halfhearted lift of his mouth.
No point in worrying now. They’d learn their fate soon enough.
The only thing that surprised Attalus about what Araxos and Erastus were calling a trial was that most of the court was once again present. He’d half expected to be led up to the top of the Pinnacle, had his wings belted to his back, and thrown into the sea. Tidy, efficient, effective.
Instead, they were brought into a crowded great hall, Araxos presiding over everything from the dais. Honestly, not much had changed from a few days ago, making Attalus wonder if time had begun to slip down in the Maw—or whether Araxos had kept everyone else there in the room until the trial.
A display of power all around.
The courtiers and retainers certainly looked tired enough to have been there for days. Strain pulled at mouths, and eyes were a bit dazed as they skipped suspiciously between Araxos and his accused.